The Things We Water

“How’s the number 2 love of my life?”

I melted on the other side of my phone’s camera, torn between so much love my body could barely handle it and wanting to slap my hands against my face so I could muffle the scream that had been steadily building in my body over the last few days. I hadn’t purposely kept things from my two closest friends in the entire world, but there were some things that were easier to explain verbally than through text.

Plus, I knew Matti and Sienna; they were going to want the whole story, not just part of it.

And Sienna showed me just how well she knew me when she lunged forward, so close into her own phone’s forward-facing camera that all that was visible was a single green eye and a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “What happened?” she demanded.

Did she have any idea she’d picked up Matti’s video call habits? I let it go for now as I leaned against the seat of my travel trailer’s dining room table slash bed, not sure where to start even though I had already planned parts of this conversation out so we could cover everything. That’s why I was in the trailer, to give myself the closest thing to privacy I could get without driving an hour away. Nothing I had to say was worth the gas. And too many people came in and out of the clubhouse for that to be a proper venue for our conversation.

“That good?” Sienna’s eye got even closer so I couldn’t see anything but a blurry iris and pupil.

“‘Good’ is a stretch,” I told her honestly, slumping into the refinished seat. I had redone it myself four years ago when I’d parked outside of Sienna’s parents’ house and spent a month and a half refurbishing my trailer with the help of her dad.

She whistled long and low. “I had a feeling about this two nights ago.” Her eyeball flicked to the side where Matti was sitting. “Didn’t I tell you my sixth sense was going off?”

“You did, baby,” he agreed from out of the shot.

I smirked, and Si nodded.

“See? I’m ready when you are,” she let me know.

The smirk fell off my face. “You pick. I don’t know where to start. My maybe biological father waking me up in the middle of the night⁠—”

She gasped, and it was my turn to nod.

“The bogeymen and the gnomes who want to have kids.” Her eyebrow arched at that. “Or do you want to hear about how someone’s cousin is ignoring me now because I haven’t been able to stop asking him if he wants to marry me, even though he kissed me… or he gave me a peck, if we’re going to be technical.” It was not my finest moment. But I didn’t want to regret not putting myself out there, especially not when the only person I wanted to mate with to stay here was him.

I held up my finger. “He also rubbed his face all over me after a bunch of werewolves showed up to cook.”

I was suddenly really glad Sienna wasn’t around to smell the despair that I had to be emitting at the acceptance that I wasn’t going to get what I wanted.

The thing I wanted being Henri.

“You didn’t,” was all she said.

“I did.”

“Nina.”

I shrugged.

The camera zoomed back, and she shook her head slower than anyone I’d ever seen before. “That. I pick that. I want to hear about that son of a bitch DNA donor, but later, and you having a bunch of werewolves wanting to mate with you has been old news before it was even news. I’ve always known you were boner material.”

I beamed. “Have I told you lately that I love you?”

“No, but thank you. Now tell me what’s going on with someone’s cousin. Henri kissed you?” Her voice went high and everything.

Out of view, Matti muttered, “Ugh.”

Even though I’d told Matti some of what was going on, and I was confident he’d shared it with her, it took about two minutes to rattle off the first brief mention I’d made to Henri about Matti’s suggestion. I followed that with the most recent and wrapped it up with a brief explanation about him being stressed, letting him borrow my RV, and him coming home and giving me that smooch that was still haunting me.

It had been three days since I’d last seen him, for the record.

I told her almost everything but skipped out on him being half-naked and all the stuff with my father since this was a three-part miniseries. “He’s avoiding me now.”

She scrunched up her face. “Why do you think that?”

Holding up a finger again, I peeked through the blinds behind my back and then got up and checked the other windows. There still didn’t seem to be any other community residents walking around; for the most part, none of them got home until late in the afternoon anyway. Once I was back at the table, I leaned forward and whispered, “Because I take the kids—Duncan and the white wolf, Agnes—out every night for a game of tag and a popsicle, and we look at the stars. We go out at the same time, and I know he knows that because there were a few nights before all this that he would come home and sit with us when we were out there. Since that night when I’d asked him if he was sure he didn’t want to marry me—” I realized then I’d forgotten to tell her the part of me telling him he was attractive. “—he’s purposely gotten home fifteen minutes after we would’ve gone back inside the clubhouse. Same time every night.” I’d timed it.

“You sure it isn’t a coincidence?” She squinted. “Matti’s said before he’s blunt. Wouldn’t he tell you if something was going on instead?”

“I know one night his shift ended an hour earlier because one of the other wolves called him and asked where he was.”

That had left a little knot in the center of my chest. The idea that Henri might be avoiding me, hurt.

But I’d taken a risk with him that night in my room, even though I hadn’t actually thought he would say yes, no matter how much he seemed to stare at me sometimes, or touch me, or how helpful or kind he could be.

Or how playful he could be with me. Or affectionate. Or protective.

Or regardless of what Matti had smelled coming from him.

I’d been doomed.

On the screen, Sienna got even more squinty, and Matti was blinking very casually at the screen—he’d slid closer to her at some point—and I knew I needed to change the subject.

“Can I tell you about my father now so I can tie in that story with Henri avoiding me?”

“Proceed.”

Only with them could I grin through this conversation. “My DNA dad may or may not be waking people at the ranch up in the middle of the night, in a dream that’s not a dream, asking for his ‘child.’ The gnomes think it’s him or a family member.”

“What?”

That sounded as outrageous as it was. I told them what happened.

Moving the camera back to only focus on her, she mouthed “whatttt,” and I nodded again. “There’s a lot to unpack here, but let’s back up a couple steps.” Sienna leaned forward again. “What exactly would you do if he said yes?”

We were back to that. “Do it,” I told her instantly.

She leaned away, then zoomed back in. “Really?”

Did she have to sound like it was that crazy? “Yeah.”

Her eyes slid from side to side. “I haven’t gotten the full story, but it sounds like you might have options, and if you do, then why wouldn’t you explore those instead of him?”

I’d known this was coming. I sat up on the bench seat. “He’s very handsome. He’s so good with all the kids. He bickers with me but in a fun way. He works hard, but too hard. He’s very protective⁠—”

“Henri?” She couldn’t believe it, and I laughed.

“Yes.” Not that she could see, but my shoulders dropped. “Henri. He ticks all my boxes. Every single one of them.” I paused and told them the truth, even though I couldn’t see Matti at the moment. “I like him a lot.” Saying that out loud made me… it made me sad, because I did. And nobody was indebted to like anyone in return, but why couldn’t that be the case? He was the first man I’d ever felt this level of attraction to, on so many different levels, not just physically and….

Sienna narrowed those green eyes at me, but all she said was “Huh.”

I shrugged, and I knew my struggle had to be evident. I more than liked him, and if I couldn’t admit that to them, then who could I say it to? Raising my eyes to the ceiling, I told her without moving my lips, “I think I’m a little in love with him.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “Sorry, Matti.”

Sienna didn’t say a word, and I peeked back down at the screen.

She had the saddest look on her face. “I’m sorry, Nina. That doesn’t explain that kiss, but…” Si shrugged. “It’s his loss, and I kind of hope he regrets it when you mate with someone else.”

It said something that she wasn’t telling me things would work out, and it said even more that Matti stayed quiet too.

The low-key grief was there in my tone. “I kind of hope so too.” I shrugged. “It’s fine. I saw a couple of the wolves who did seem interested, and they were nothing to be disappointed over.” I could love anyone. If I gave it time and watered the love, fertilized it… it could grow. That rang true for every kind there was.

Just because one person couldn’t love me didn’t mean someone else couldn’t.

There was no reason for that thought to hurt me as much as it did, but it did. My stomach, though, revolted like it always did when I pictured that.

My oldest friend leaned in front of his wife. “Give me names. I’ll do backgrounds checks.”

The three of us were smirking, but something that felt exactly like disappointment took a little bit more of my joy away.

At least I knew what I was working with. At least I knew where I stood with him. With Henri.

At least… I had another chance to be with someone else in the future.

Child. Nina?

I sat up.

My throat hurt. My nose stung. It was the grogginess, though, that was the worst of it all. Duncan, fortunately, was sleeping peacefully against my leg. Safe. Innocent. Undisturbed.

I took a breath in through my nose and let it come out shaky. And when a minute went by and then another and there was no knock, no barging in, no handsome man coming to save me, no nothing, I told myself it was for the best while wiping at my eyes and my nose with the back of my wrist. I did it again before I put my elbow on the mattress and crawled out from beneath the covers. Duncan lifted his head up from where he was on his side, and I curled my body around his. And my sweet, perfect puppy wiggled his way up to tuck his head beneath my chin, and he gave me exactly what I needed right then.

“Love,”he told me.

LOVE, I tried to tell him right back.

“…farted in my eye, Dunky. If I end up with pink eye, it’s going to be your fault,” I rambled to my donut who was on his way to being a bear claw, as we made our way down the staircase.

A red eye set in a dark face peeked up at me, and I gasped.

“Did you do it on purpose?” I asked him, referring to the way he had woken me up by passing gas with his butt inches from my face earlier. My whole eye felt funny now. And from that little side-look he’d just given me, I would have sworn he’d done it on purpose.

My boy didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no either. It made me laugh before I reached down and tickled his neck as we kept going. He was taking the stairs so easily now.

“That’s rude, if you did it on purpose,” I kept on going as we approached the closed door where Agnes’s room was. “But your firepower was impressive.”

We hadn’t even gotten to it when the door opened and a blonde head of hair stuck out like she’d been waiting.

I slowed down and smiled. “Good morning, Agnes.”

Duncan trotted ahead to stick his face in the doorway, and I could see the little girl duck to give him a hug as she replied, “Hi.”

“Everything okay?”

There was a pause longer than it needed to be before she peered up at me, her face pretty much pinched. “Can you fix my hair?”

I couldn’t let myself blink.

Agnes hadn’t been acting differently during the day or at night when we met up in the hallway before going outside. She was still quiet. Still self-contained.

But now? She was asking me to help her. Me.

It had only taken two months.

“Love,” Duncan’s familiar voice had me flicking my eyes toward him.

My donut and his moral support. I puckered my lips and blew him a kiss. He knew me well enough to sense I was going through something, and he was telling me it was okay.

How in the world had I gotten so lucky?

“Sure,” I agreed, still trying to keep my features even. This had to be the equivalent of the popular boy in high school being interested in me. I had to play it cooler than I ever had before. “Pigtails again or would you like me to try something else?”

If she noticed that my voice came out pitchy, it didn’t reflect on her face. “Pigtails are okay,” she answered a little warily.

One day, she was going to let me braid her hair, I decided right then. That was my goal, which meant I should practice my braids, so I’d be ready when we got to that stage in our relationship. Because we would, even if it took ten years. I had never met another child like her before, and I still had no idea what had led to this, but as long as I was here, I was going to be there for her.

Agnes backed up and opened the door wide, and Duncan darted inside, his nose to the ground, smelling one way and then the other, drawn the most to the twin-sized bed closer to the window with a plain white comforter on it. It was where the women who took turns sleeping in her room stayed. I hadn’t made friends with either of them exactly—they were polite yet not what I would call friendly—but I wasn’t worried about it. All that mattered was that they were good to her, and so far, I hadn’t heard a single complaint.

While Duncan snooped around, I sat on the bed in the same spot as last time and the little girl backed up between my legs.

“Did you sleep okay?” I asked, taking the comb she handed me and drawing it through her thick but very straight hair.

“Sera snores a lot,” she answered, not sounding any grumpier than usual.

“You know…” Would it be too much too soon to…? Should I talk to Duncan about it first and see how he felt about it? I was overthinking it, I decided. “If you need anything in the middle of the night… or can’t sleep… or if you want to have a sleepover, Agnes, you can always come upstairs with us. We all fit that other day with Henri.”

“Yes,” the puppy on the other side of the room told me again, confirming my thought that I’d been overthinking my offer to the little girl. Red eyes were peeking at me from over the edge of the bed.

Oh, this donut knew exactly what he was doing and when he was doing it best. After holding him for a while, I’d eventually fallen asleep the same way we used to when he’d been a newborn. On his back with his butt tucked into my armpit, legs straight up in the air.

I winked at him before parting Agnes’s hair straight down the middle.

I’d just perfected the spot for her right pigtail and gotten the elastic around it when she whispered, “Henri said the man in the dream is looking for you.”

My hands stilled. I had a choice here, and I made my decision. I’d hoped for a miracle, that he hadn’t woken anybody up, but that was wishful thinking. “That’s what people tell me, but I don’t know for sure, Agnes. I’m sorry he’s waking you up.” I wrinkled my nose for a second. “I promise there’s nothing for you to be scared of.”

“I’m not scared,” she chuffed like I was dumb. I could’ve pointed out how she’d been shaking around the gnomes, but it was enough for me to know the truth.

“Good. Because you shouldn’t be,” I assured her. “None of us are going to let anything happen to any of you.” I would do whatever I had to to keep Duncan and the rest of the pups safe. I would even include Henri, Randall, Ani, and Maggie, too, on my list of people I was protective over here. There was Phoebe the satyr too. She was the one parent who talked to me the most. We had gone grocery shopping together the day before, and she was still quiet but very sweet. We’d made plans to go again.

Then there was Franklin, who might get there someday after he’d gotten bent out of shape on my behalf with the other elders, even though there was something still suspicious about him. Since getting back from Alaska, he’d been quiet when we shared meals together and also super tense. More than once, I’d caught him watching me discreetly, but I’d played it off like I didn’t see him. When we did talk, it was usually about the puppies at the nursery, and every once in a while, he might ask a personal question, like where I had grown up, where my parents lived, and where I’d lived before.

Everyone else here though? I’d think about it. It would probably be a case-by-case basis.

“Why’s he doing that?” Agnes asked, bringing me back to the present.

“Waking us up?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You have pretty hair, Agnes,” I told her, drawing the brush through it. “I don’t know why.”

“Who is he?”

Her own family situation went through my head, and I knew I had to be careful. “I’m not sure. Remember the gnomes? They told me it’s my dad, but I don’t know any of my family,” I admitted. This was the first time she’d asked me something personal about myself.

That got her to peek at me over her shoulder. She didn’t resemble Henri physically at all, but her expression couldn’t have been any more Fluffy if she’d tried. I wanted to tease her over it, but it was too soon.

“You don’t know your mom or your dad?” the little girl scoffed like she couldn’t believe it.

How did I explain this? “No.” I pressed my lips together. “When I was a baby, these two werewolves found me and decided I could be their daughter. They were my mom and dad, but I came out of other people’s bodies. I don’t really count my birth parents because my werewolf parents did everything for me. They raised me and took care of me and loved me. I was their baby, and they’re my family. I love them very much. Does that make sense?”

She faced forward again. “Uh-huh.”

I didn’t want to call my biological parents my “real” mom and dad because I didn’t think of them that way. “Real” parents were the ones who did the work and put in the effort and love, but that would be way too complicated to explain to a child, so I was going to have to go with it. “But my mom and dad, who are like me, I never met. Or anybody else, not my grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, no one. All I’m trying to say is that I don’t know why that voice is waking us up. I am sorry that he’s bothering you, though.”

I managed to start her pigtail before she spoke up again, her own voice more careful than I ever would’ve expected. “So you have two dads?”

She still wanted to talk about me? “Sure, I guess,” I answered.

“And that’s okay?”

I had to pretend like I had no idea how she was relating this to her own life, because if I did, it would make me cry, and I could not cry in front of this land shark. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t be. One was in my life and the other wasn’t. One wanted to be my dad, and the other didn’t. There’s no law that says you can’t have two.”

Another long minute went by before, “So sometimes… dads don’t want to be dads?”

My tear ducts activated.

It took me a second to say, in a voice I thought was pretty even considering I was real close to weeping, “Sometimes, Agnes. I wish I could tell you why, but I have no idea.” I touched her hair. “But like with my parents that weren’t a part of my life, it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t anything I did for them to not be with me. I didn’t do anything wrong. I try not to let it hurt my feelings.” I swallowed. “Sometimes it does though. But I was lucky like you are; I had people who loved me and wanted to be in my life. They’re the ones who matter the most. Some words, like mom or dad, are just words. It’s how someone makes you feel that matters.”

The little girl didn’t say anything after that. And when we were done, Dunky strolled over, planting his chin on my leg, and I strained picking him up, and even though I knew she was going to say no, I held out my hand to Agnes.

“No, thank you,” she answered but opened the door for us.

She was a salty little peanut, but fortunately for her, I liked savory things just as much as I liked the sweet stuff.

And if anything else, she reminded me of what it was that mattered.

I hugged Duncan just that much tighter, relishing the feel of his frame and his weight because I was running out of time with moments like these. The good thing was, he didn’t mind as he licked my cheek.

“Yes,”he told me. “Love.”

My heart was going to burst one of these days, and I couldn’t think of a better way to go.

“What happened to your mom and dad?” Agnes asked suddenly, tipping her face up at me in the hallway. Her eyelashes were almost white, her eyebrows almost a light brown that made her cute face so striking.

This was the most we’d ever talked to each other at once. I loved it.

“My werewolf mom and dad?”

She started walking right alongside me. “Uh-huh.”

“They live in Mexico now.” I held Duncan tighter as the words came out of my mouth. “I still see them, but not a lot. I can’t drive to visit them anymore. They live somewhere without cell phones and internet, and calls are expensive. They’re older, and it’s harder for them to travel.” I would never blame Duncan, but his presence had put a stop to our easy visits.

Her eyebrows were at her hairline when she glanced up at me. “You miss them?”

“I miss them so much,” I told her gently, not sure where she was going with this.

I wasn’t sure she did either when she seemed to ponder that a while before asking, “But are they still your mom and dad? Even if you don’t see them?”

How could I explain such a difficult concept? And how in the world did I get myself into this position so much? “Some people are so important to you that nothing, not time, not being far, not life or… death, will ever take them away. I don’t see my best friends all the time either, but I still love them so much, and they love me, and they’re always going to be there for me.”

“But… how do you know you aren’t gonna forget them? Since you don’t see them?”

This was the last person in the world I ever would have expected to break my heart, and it took me a moment to get myself together. “Some things you just can’t forget. Think about Henri. He calls you Ladybug, right? So I bet, for the rest of your life, any time you see one, you’re going to think of him. There are probably a lot of things you two have talked about and been through that will make you think of him forever.”

She grumbled under her breath, but that was the best explanation I had. Fortunately for me, we made it to the kitchen, and I could see her pressing her lips together, that sharp mind racing with who knew how many thoughts. I hoped she’d ask me more about anything she wanted, even the difficult topics, even if I didn’t know how to answer them.

At the doorway though, I spotted a man leaning against the island, the rest of the kitchen empty.

There I went not paying attention again.

But it wasn’t Randall’s red head or Henri’s black color, much less Franklin’s more-salt-than-pepper hair.

It was a blond man.

And coming off him was werewolf magic.

It was Dominic, who looked up with a scowl from the phone he’d been focused on.

Honestly, I’d almost forgotten all about him. I hadn’t given him a single thought in a while. I considered it a blessing that he hadn’t been by again with his offer to mate with me.

I’d move to the South Pole before that ever happened.

And from the face he made, he didn’t exactly seem thrilled to see us either.

Not even his daughter, that rotten asshole.

As if the same thought hit her at the exact time it did me, Agnes set that stubborn chin, clenched those fists Maggie had mentioned she’d gotten into fights with in the past, and she marched right up to him, a freaking bone to pick written all over that small face. The eight-year-old girl went straight into intersecting a man that adults and children were intimidated by, like it was nothing to her. She was an army of one right then.

Pure pride went through my system, even though I had nothing to do with how tough she was.

I must’ve not been the only one surprised by her actions because even Dominic made a face like he didn’t get what was going on.

The girl I’d gotten to know, who was only scared of gnomes, steeled her titanium spine and said, in her snitch voice, “You’re not supposed to be here. Franklin said.”

I didn’t think my mouth had ever formed the shape of an O faster.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Duncan’s tail go straight up in the air, but he didn’t move an inch.

Dominic’s face contorted into a sneer. “What did you say to me?” he snapped in a way that had me taking a step forward.

Maybe he was her dad, but that didn’t mean shit to me.

But Agnes wasn’t even a little intimidated as she tipped that little chin up and said it again even louder. “You’re not supposed to be here. Franklin and Henri both said. I heard them.”

She tapped her right ear, and I almost howled.

Just like that, she got promoted from protector to badass.

But it was the wrong thing to say to a man with an anger problem.

Dom’s face went red. “Franklin and Henri are not the fucking boss of me.”

I moved around the island and slid in between her and the man who was supposed to take care of her and protect her.

But I knew better than anyone that sometimes biology failed in that aspect.

But you know what didn’t fail? Love. And for as prickly of a cactus as she could be, I did love Agnes, and so did Henri and all the other people who included her in their lives. She had her own chat in the app.

Maybe this asshole had gotten away with being mean to kids before, but that was over.

“You need to go,” I said in a flat voice as anger like I hadn’t experienced since the days those people had tried to take my donut flared inside my whole body, my ears ringing.

The asshole’s lip curled. “I’m not talking to you.”

I didn’t think it was possible to get angrier, but it was.

“You must be talking to me because I know you’re not talking to her like that,” I told him through gritted teeth, ready to shave his eyebrows off.

We were shocking him left and right tonight. He reared. “What?” Dom snarled.

Wasn’t used to someone talking back, was he? “You heard me,” I answered, refusing to tiptoe around him anymore. “It’s time for you to leave.” What was he doing here in the first place?

Angry pink streaks formed across his cheeks. “You don’t get to tell me shit.”

“When you talk to a child like that, then yeah, I do get to tell you when you need to go, and that’s right now.”

“Fuck you.”

“Okay?” I shrugged. “I’ll do that, but you still need to leave.”

A confused expression spread over his features at what I could only imagine was me not being devastated at his incredible comeback. It only lasted a second. “No. No. I don’t need to do shit,” he claimed. “I don’t give a fuck who you are and who you’re banging. You’re fucking nobody.”

If he thought he was going to hurt my feelings, he was going to be in for a huge disappointment.

And how could he say “banging” in front of the kids?

Dominic’s eyes dropped to my side as Agnes leaned around me. Not peeking. Not even trying to be discreet, but literally clearly hanging out. And her DNA daddy didn’t like that.

His face turned even redder before he exploded. “Neither of you get to say shit to me. I don’t care if you’re under Henri’s protection or not. He’s a fucking spineless⁠—”

I’d heard enough. It was one thing to be rude to me, but Agnes? And much less Henri?

Not on my damn watch.

A sharp knife was only dangerous when you used it in the wrong way, after all.

At that moment, the magic in my stomach said, Here I am, and I said, There you are.

Use me as you need, it told me, and I welcomed it.

Maybe it was a gift I didn’t necessarily want, but it was there, and it was mine, and I would do what I could with it.

I leaned forward, my voice steel and night. The past and the future. Life and death. “Dominic?” I murmured.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Agnes’s face tip up to look at me.

Dom’s eyes slightly widened, and I wondered what he saw in mine. Probably exactly what I wanted him to.

A part of me I didn’t like sharing. But he’d forced me to come this far. Forced me to do this. And now we were all going to ride this out.

“Do you know what happened to the last person who threatened someone I care about?” I asked him.

His throat bobbed, and I watched goose bumps prickle along his neck, saw the way his mouth parted as those irises, very similar to Agnes’s, scanned my face.

He was seeing me again for the first time.

Seeing a part of me I’d only shared with a handful of people.

“Last time I checked, they were still in the ICU,” I explained, knowing it wasn’t low enough for Agnes to not overhear, but I couldn’t care at that point.

I clenched my magic tight. It was a warm, dark night with a full moon blazing down on it. It was powerful and timeless, and it was mine. And maybe I hadn’t wanted it for most of my life, but it wasn’t going anywhere, and now it was my time to use it for a good reason.

“You ever wondered what life looks like?” My chin went up another notch. “It looks like a spark, like the flame on Duncan’s tail. But inside. Beneath your skin and ribs and all the organs that keep a body functioning. It’s hidden right up in there.

“For most people, it’s the biggest and the brightest when they’re young. As they get older, it loses size and gets duller. It’s not everyone, but it’s most people. Nice people, happy people, are always bright and beautiful,” I explained, holding his searching gaze tight.

“It’s easier, the older someone is, to make that spark even smaller though, a little dimmer….” I dropped my voice even lower, but I didn’t doubt he could hear it. “To pinch it between magical fingers and extinguish it completely.”

Dominic’s lips parted even more, and I caught him licking them, caught his gaze moving from one of my eyes to the other. And I didn’t imagine that his voice wobbled, “But… you get people pregnant….”

He was finally seeing the full picture.

“Most people don’t know there’s a very, very fine line between life and death. Between creating and erasing. One of them is easy to control, and the other one… not so much. Want to guess which one is which?”

A harsh breath left the man in front of me, but I wasn’t done.

He’d had his chance to walk away, and now he was going to regret not taking it.

“I want you to think about that the next time you threaten someone that you think is weaker than you. That you think can’t stand up for themselves or won’t retaliate. Because maybe they can’t, or won’t, but someone else might. Someone else would. Maybe someone else might feel a little bad about doing what they have to do to protect their loved ones, but at the end of the day, they’ll be able to sleep just fine,” I warned him softly.

Because like I’d told Shiloh, you didn’t have to be big and have sharp teeth to be scary.

Then I gripped my magic even tighter, and I showed him, just a little, just enough. I brought it to the surface.

He saw it. I let him get a real good view of it too—of the other side of my parents’ gifts. The opposite of life. I showed him the death that ran through my veins, in my eyes. Some might think it was cold, but it wasn’t, pulling at it was like tugging at an inferno in my chest, in my soul. I could crush the life out like a crumpled piece of paper: that was what he saw. Color drained from his face in a split second, and there was something in his eye that would have made me feel awful if he’d been anyone else.

But I was sick of his shit, and I was done playing nice.

Sometimes good men could be misunderstood men, the same way good women could be. But he was not a good man. He was jealous and petty, and it went against a werewolf’s nature to not care for those weaker.

He might be under the impression he was still the baddest fish in this pond, but I was the box jellyfish here and everywhere.

And this was no competition.

I took a step closer to him and softened my voice that much more, even as that dark, ancient magic that coursed through my body flared throughout it. “I want to make sure you understand this isn’t a threat. I’m only sharing a fact with you, and you can share it with whoever you want.” My nostrils flared as I thought about my friends at the nursery and the wounded look on Agnes’s face and remembered the way Phoebe hadn’t wanted to be overheard when she’d told me about him.

“Tell whoever needs to hear it: death isn’t one person. Death doesn’t walk around with a scythe and a robe. Sometimes it has long hair, sometimes it has short hair. Sometimes it comes in an accident, and sometimes in the middle of the night when you’re asleep.” I dropped my voice and looked him right in the eye. “And sometimes it likes wearing a fanny pack.”

Dom swallowed hard.

Very, very hard.

His coloring went even more pale when his gaze dipped to my waist, where a brand-new silver fanny pack rested around my hips.

He blinked.

I felt like I was in a daze as I watched him leave the kitchen without another word. Some part of me recognized that I had to tell Henri what had just happened. What I’d admitted.

But before all that, there was another conversation I needed to have first.

For all of a disappointment as Dom might be, he was still Agnes’s dad, and she was still too young to process why people were the way they were, and maybe I shouldn’t have handled this in front of her.

Spinning around, I took in the features I’d gotten to know. It was the same level of serious as it always was. She didn’t seem mad, but….

“Mini Wolf, I’m sorry for talking to him like that in front of you,” I told her, ready to apologize some more, ready to figure out how to explain just what I’d implied.

But in front of my face, her eyebrows knit together, and she shrugged in a way that seemed familiar. Then she shocked me for the third time in a matter of minutes. The girl who’d tried to bite a green river crone shrugged. “It’s not my fault he’s mean.” She even blinked while she said it.

My eyebrows shot up my forehead, and I blinked right back at her. “No,” I agreed, “it’s not.”

Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Duncan look back and forth between us, and I had to fight the urge to smile when he was looking up at me like that.

“Are you okay?” I asked her, taking in all those small features for signs that she might be traumatized. But… there weren’t any?

“Yeah,” she scoffed, like I was dumb for asking, right as Henri and Franklin both walked in.

What were the chances he didn’t smell Dominic’s presence in the room?

“Morning, Franklin. Morning, Henri,” I piped up, taking in Henri’s uniform. He had the black on black again, black tactical-looking pants, and a short-sleeved black polo. If someone was going to twist my arm, I’d say it was my favorite of all his outfits.

Other than his sleeping pants one with no shirt.

Henri stopped dead smack in the middle of the kitchen, halfway to the island and the range. His expression was already suspicious. “What’s going on?” He drew the question out as his eyes narrowed. “Why was Dom in here?”

I was too busy trying to think of an appropriate response when Agnes answered, “He made Nina mad, and she was gonna kick his ass.”

I choked on freaking air.

But before I could laugh—or do anything else—Henri replied, “Thank you, Ladybug.” He paused. “Say ‘butt’ instead, okay?”

“Okay,” the little girl agreed in a cheery voice.

I almost didn’t want to glance in his direction. I didn’t need a good nose to know he was mad. But I peeked anyway. I had just been thinking about telling him everything that had happened.

And from the barely contained expression on those sharp features—he was definitely mad—there was no time better than the present.

I scratched my cheek and reminded myself that I’d done the right thing and now I had to live with it. “Henri, can I talk to you for a minute?”

His attention shifted toward me, his mouth flat, that cheek muscle popping, but he nodded. It was his slow nod though. His angry one. He was already expecting the worst.noveldrama

“Franklin, do you mind watching Duncan for a few minutes?” I asked.

The elder looked like he had no idea what was going on as he stood by the main island, but he nodded.

Now or never. “Duncan, stay here, okay?” I told my puppy, who was still standing beside his friend.

“Yes,”my boy answered.

It made me feel like a coward, but I purposely avoided making eye contact with Henri as I walked over to him, and neither one of us said a word as we left the kitchen. Out the front door, we went as I led him to my trailer. It wasn’t much, but something was better than nothing. I opened the unlocked door and waved him in with a small, uncertain smile, not sure how he was going to look at me after this conversation.

Henri reached over my head to hold it open, and he tipped his chin toward the inside of the trailer. I went in, and he followed. I took a seat at my dining room table, and he stood in front of it instead, arms crossed over his chest in a way that reminded me of my first day here.

“Wanna tell me what happened?” The werewolf didn’t bother wasting time. He’d smoothed his features into that neutral expression that was my least favorite version of Henri.

“Not really.” I hesitated. “But I need to.”

That wasn’t the response he’d been expecting from the way his eyebrow went up a millimeter like usual. “Why don’t you want to?” he asked.

I squirmed in my seat. “Because I don’t want you to look at me differently.” Well, more differently than he already was, avoiding me, and just… retreating.

But maybe this would be a good thing. I didn’t want to hide myself from whoever I ended up with. It was bound to come out anyway. And maybe I’d have a better excuse as to why Henri would pull back and stick to being polite with me from now on.

That would make things easier to an extent. Moving on, that was.

I didn’t think he liked my answer, though, from the way he frowned.

“Dominic was rude to Agnes, and I said some things I don’t regret, but I’d rather you hear it from me than from him,” I told him, crossing my arms over my own chest, hugging myself. “I owe you that much.”

His face went even broodier. “Was he rude to you too?”

“I don’t think he knows how to be nice. From everything I’ve heard, he’s mean to everyone,” I explained. “But I got mad, and I may have threatened him a little.” A grimace shaped my mouth.

“A little?”

I nodded and held up my index and thumb apart. “Little bit.”

“How?” Henri asked, his tone cooler and flatter.

I bit the inside of my cheek, but I had to own it. Nobody had made me do what I’d done. “He got in my face for telling him to leave after he got an attitude with Agnes. I may have said that he can bully some people, but there are other people who wouldn’t put up with his BS.” I swallowed. “Other people who might make him pay for his actions.”

Henri shifted his weight, his expression still sober. “Make him pay how?”

I scratched my cheek, but there was no hiding me. No hiding who I was, and this was something else I shouldn’t be too ashamed over. Did I wish it was different? Absolutely, but I was the knife, and I could cut a cake, or I could stab someone. And I’d warned Henri already in bits and pieces. There was a good chance he might have already deduced what I was about to admit.

I could only hope.

“You probably already have an idea,” I said. “I’ve told you more than I’ve told anyone else in a really long time….”

I couldn’t say it. It was one thing to threaten Dominic. To insinuate heavily. But it was a whole different ball game to tell Henri. To tell anyone, I wanted to believe. Matti knew because he was Matti. I trusted him more than anything and anyone. He would never look at me differently, and because of that, his reaction could never have been devastating.

If Henri did….

Why had I done this to myself? Why had I given another person so much power over my feelings? Was it because I wanted him to like me? Was it because I more than liked him?

Amber eyes burned a hole straight into me. “You can tell me anything,” he claimed, like he could read my mind.

I lifted both my shoulders, pressing my lips together.

“I’m not scared of you. I thought we went over that already,” he went on, steadily.

But I still hesitated.

Sure, he thought that. Sure, we’d faced two bogeymen and he hadn’t batted an eyelash with them or with Spencer, and who knew what other beings he’d come across in his life. But… that was different.

His thick throat worked, and I didn’t think it was disappointment that came over his features, but it might have been something close to it. “You don’t need to tell me if you aren’t ready.”

Would I ever be?

Planting my elbows on the table, I palmed my forehead and released a low, long breath. “You’re going to hear about it. I don’t think that bigmouth is going to keep it to himself, and you don’t deserve to find out from someone else.”

His voice was so deep. “Tell me then.”

I closed my eyes. “Remember I told you about those people who tried to kidnap Duncan? How they had brain damage?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. He wouldn’t have forgotten, it was a stupid question, and I was trying to avoid getting to the point, so I kept on going.

“I know about their injury because I called the hospitals in the areas where we were and pretended to be related to them. They’re all at the ICU, or they were last time I checked, which was a month ago. I didn’t know for sure when I did what I had to do, that that’s what would happen if I used my magic on them. I honestly thought they would have a heart attack, if anything.” I pressed my forehead tight into my palms. “I took a little bit of their life away from them.”

Silence stretched long in the trailer between us.

Until, “How’s that?”

I couldn’t hear anger… or disgust… or anything that would’ve inspired me to risk looking at him.

What if he seemed disgusted? Or afraid? Or some other emotion I wouldn’t be able to forget?

“I think”—saying that I was sure made it feel too real even to me—“one of my parents is some kind of death god,” I blurted out for the first time in my life. It wasn’t a relief to announce it exactly, but I still had to fight the urge to peek through my fingers when he didn’t respond immediately.

There was a long moment of silence. The breath he let out was loud. “A death god?” was what he chose to repeat in a nearly emotionless voice.

I nodded, still refusing to open my eyes. It was easier this way, not knowing how he felt, and for the first time since moving here, I was grateful not to have a werewolf’s nose. “I realized it right after my magic manifested itself. I hugged my dad and let my magic go a little, and I saw… I don’t know how it works, but I… I told Dom that life looks like a flame. Like this light that I can see with my magic, and I can pinch it off if I try hard enough.” That made me drop my hands and lift my head. “Not that I have! Not all the way, but….”

Henri had uncrossed his arms at some point. His face was clear and open, so carefully neutral. His muscles weren’t bulging. He wasn’t sweating or pale.

Was that a good thing?

I leaned back and hugged my arms tighter around myself. “But I can. I know what it means if I do it; I can feel it. I saw what it meant when I did it to those men, and I didn’t go to ten even though I had sort of wanted to. But I always… knew, Fluff. Henri. My parents and I talked about it, and they both agreed. Doing it feels wrong, but I can, if I have to.” Easily.

Shaking my foot beneath the table, I watched him stand there, the Great Wolf heir, the leader of this community, as I kept talking. “I showed that to Dominic, a little bit. I know I shouldn’t have. I know I was picking on him, the same way he bullies everyone, but you know how people like that are. They think they’re tougher than everyone else. They think no one would ever stand up to them, and I’m sick of it, and I’ve only been here a couple of months. Now I’m worried I might have made things worse. I should’ve told you before anyone, but….”

Henri’s nod was slow. Too slow? Was he disappointed in me?

Please no.

Planting my elbows back on the table, I cupped both sides of my neck. I shouldn’t care so much what anyone thought about me. I couldn’t help myself though. He was the one person at the top of the list that I didn’t want to run off. I wanted Henri to like me. To keep liking me. Even the parts I kept hidden from just about everyone.

And I felt that reflected on my face—fear, hope, earnestness—as I caught his attention and held on. “I’m sorry, Fluff. I shouldn’t have taken it that far. But that’s why I scare people off. They can sense that there’s something wrong in me.”

Henri’s whole body jerked, and his voice came out harsher than I’d ever heard it, a scowl storming over his mouth and eyes and his whole body. He even took a step forward. His tone was sharp. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Nina.”

My lips parted, my heart was touched, but… realistic. Maybe I tried to sometimes live in a fantasy world where I hoped for the best, but I could be real too. I could. “You said it: I scared a child-eating crone.” My voice cracked just a little. “Spencer hates me.”

“Spencer hates everyone,” he snapped almost as ferociously as he had a second ago.

I shook my head. “I’ve had holy water thrown on me, Fluff. Henri. I’m not under any delusions⁠—”

If I thought he’d been mad before, I would’ve sworn death rolled over his face right then. Tight skin over striking bone structure, eyes narrowed, neck muscles tense. “Who…?” His nostrils flared. “Who did that to you?”

“It’s fine.” I waved him off. “Some lady. But that’s why I stayed away from other beings for so long. Because I don’t know how they’ll react, and I can’t be mad at them for being scared. I don’t even use my magic anymore to look at people’s flames unless I have to. I can see when people are really sick—terminally ill—and it’s terrible. The coloring changes, the flames get so weak…. It all seems like an intrusion to me now. It feels so personal to see it. To know that kind of thing. Maybe I’m a coward, and maybe one day I’ll change my mind, but I don’t want to know when someone is dying.” My face went hot at admitting this to him, at giving him every reason to shun me, too, like so many others had. Even my eyes started to sting a little, as I thought about the fear I’d witnessed from all those people before. As I thought about how sad it had made me to know someone was coming to the end of their life. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

My voice cracked, and I had to swallow to reset it, hating that it still didn’t come out normal. “I wish this wasn’t in me, but it is. I’ve tried to come to terms with it, you know? This is who I am. I can ignore it, but I know it’s there. I just… I thought you should hear it from me, instead of that asshole.”

The vein at his temple started throbbing as his jaw got even more pronounced.

“You know the kids hate him? Even Phoebe mentioned he was a jerk a long time ago. He had the nerve to raise his voice to Agnes,” I tattled.

Henri stood there, staring over angrily. There was no clear sign if he was mad at me for what I’d done, mad at the fact no one might have told him how much of an asshole Dom was, or at Dom for being Dom.

Or at me for being me? Just thinking that broke my heart and made my eyes sting. But it was what it was, and even if I cried afterward, I was going to hold my head up high. Apologizing for my magic would be like saying I was sorry for not having blue eyes. Wasn’t that what I would tell Duncan if he ever worried about what he looked like and who he was?

Even if Henri couldn’t love me or appreciate me, that didn’t mean no one else could.

Henri lifted his hand and scrubbed it down his face before pinning me with a look that made me want to squirm. His voice was thick. “First off…,” he began, and I braced myself, “there is nothing wrong with you. Do I need to say that again?”

I held my breath and shook my head.

He was just getting started. “You, of all people, should know,” he glared at me hard, and I mean hard,“without life, there can’t be death, Nina.”

I swallowed and stared right back at him, wanting to hear what else he had to say, but I was scared too. Scared he might break my heart without even knowing it. Without meaning to. Scared he would make me second-guess myself more than I already had so much of my life. Scared he would make me regret moving here, and I didn’t have the luxury of feeling that way.

But he was on a roll, and he kept going, his hands forming fists under his armpits as he crossed them over his chest again. “We don’t need to talk about that right now. It wasn’t my place to bring it up before, but it is now. Tell me exactly what happened with the people who tried to kidnap Duncan.”

Dang it. I should’ve known he was going to ask for details. I would have too.

And of all the crap I’d just brought up, this was what he wanted to focus on? It wasn’t like I could argue with him over it. I leaned back and squeezed my arms to my chest, and I told him.

I told Henri about being at a campground in Oregon and having a group of men carrying obsidian come over while Duncan had been peeing.

I told him about how they’d snuck up from behind and gotten me in a chokehold, a knife to my throat, while they had grabbed my boy as he did his business.

How I’d magically pinched and I’d pinched, and I’d pinched again, not fully, but enough when that knife had grazed my skin.

Then I told him about how almost the exact same thing had happened again about a week later, at a different campground in rural South Dakota. Instead of a knife, it had been a gun. Instead of three men, there were two.

Another pinch and another.

And while I told Henri about it, I watched his face. It stayed plain and grave. His only movement had been a bob of his throat. And only after that, after he’d blinked at the end of my story, did Henri murmur, “You did what you had to do to protect your boy. There’s no shame in that.”

I shrugged, aware he was right and not regretting my actions but still wishing I hadn’t put us into that situation in the first place. It was still something I was probably going to have to think about from time to time for the rest of my life. But it wasn’t like I had made those people do what they’d done.

That didn’t make me feel any better.

And as he stood there, I also wished I hadn’t needed to tell him everything.

Despair, discomfort, and sadness at the idea that this might change what was left of our friendship after I’d been pushy with him the other night made my stomach feel funny. I hugged myself even tighter, like it would help the rest of me stick together as I laid out piece after piece for inspection. Hoping I measured up.

And it was with that thought in my head that the vein at Henri’s temple got even more bulgy as he shifted his weight in front of me. By his armpits, his hands opened and closed. “I don’t like how you’ve been smelling since we left the kitchen,” was what he stated.

Here we go again.

But before I could apologize, Henri opened his arms.

I blinked.

He opened his hands next, doing another “come here” gesture.

He didn’t look happy; he didn’t look sad. He didn’t look disgusted or even inviting, apart from his waiting arms.

I lifted a shoulder that sagged back down just as quickly as it had gone up. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I sort of whispered, sort of sighed.

His face went wary, but his right hand did that thing again. “You need a cuddle,” he told me, just to be clear.

Maybe a stronger person would have insisted that they were fine. Anyone would have been nervous to admit what I’d just told him. But I thought I was strong. Strong enough to admit that I did need a hug. That I had done something that went against every instinct in my body, and I felt vulnerable and maybe upset because of it.

I needed that hug though.

From him especially.

That’s why I didn’t hesitate more than another heartbeat before I got up and went straight for him, slipping into those arms that became a blanket of muscle as they closed in around me.

I let Henri hug me. Cuddle me. Let him soothe my nerves with his rain and cedar smell and the vibrant energy emanating off his body and his soul that seemed to overpower mine in a way.

A leader and a protector, that was him.

And for the last time, because I swore it would be, I really did—I wasn’t going to think it anymore—I wished that he was mine as I hugged him tight.

I wished things were different.

I wished….

The familiar sound of his ringtone went off, and it was me who pulled away first. Henri’s eyes briefly met mine before he stared at the screen for a solid five seconds before saying, “Hold on.” His eyebrows scrunched. “I need to take this.”

“Sure.”

His finger swept across the screen, and he brought his phone to his cheek, answering, “Henri.”

Turning around, I faced the window behind me, where the sink was, and pretended not to listen to him talking, saying things like “yes” and “someone can come out” and “you want me to?” So when he hung up, I already had an idea of what was happening.

I just wasn’t expecting him to say, “There’s something I need to deal with. Want to come with me?”

The “yes” was on the tip of my tongue, on the edge of my heart. This was his olive branch. His way of telling me things were okay.

But I didn’t know who was more surprised when I replied, “That’s okay,” instead.

I might as well have punched him in the stomach from the face he made.

“Maybe some other time. Thank you, though,” I rushed out, forcing a smile that he had to know wasn’t genuine.

The truth was, I wasn’t ashamed of my feelings for him, but that also meant I needed to be realistic about things between us, once and for all.

I’d tried getting my way, I reminded myself. I’d brought it up enough. Wished for it enough.

But just because you really wanted something, didn’t mean you were going to get it.

Which meant that now, I had to go with plan B.

Not that I even knew what it was… other than it didn’t include Henri.